


If Tomorrow Starts Without Me

by crazyforthisloki



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Post-Canon, Post-Season/Series 05 Finale, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-13
Updated: 2015-09-13
Packaged: 2018-04-20 12:01:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4786586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crazyforthisloki/pseuds/crazyforthisloki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin was bound to be forever verging in the line between slumber and attention. He had met evil wizards with time who had chased and coveted the idea of eternal life – little did they know, Merlin snickered without feeling like it, that a never ending existence also meant being awake forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If Tomorrow Starts Without Me

**Author's Note:**

> The title and a portion of the text is directly inspired by the poem "If tomorrow starts without me".  
> Read it here: http://www.scrapbook.com/poems/doc/20071.html, think about Merthur and then cry.

Merlin felt a weight in his arms, as if he was carrying a sack with his legs buried in wet sand. Yet when he looked down, he saw the pair lingering empty and bare over his lap –he didn’t blink twice. He still felt it, the residual ballast of having carried something –someone- else for a very long time. Perhaps, it had been for so long that now he could not imagine his life without having it over him. It had been so heavy, he grieved. Sometimes almost unbearable, sometimes he could not breathe from the pressure it exercised over his chest, over his heart. Now that it was gone, he did not feel lighter as if he could wave his arms up to the sky from the freeing loss of its responsibility –there was no exhilaration from the lack of it, and even if he felt like moving his arms around without restrain, he did not have in it. Merlin felt empty, and tired. He felt as if he could sleep for a hundred years.

But sleep was not an option for him.

To rest, to close his eyes and slip into the world of dreams where he could find an excuse to wake up and pretend everything was an illusion, was not for him. He felt his eyes tired, his body sagging forward, and his feet without a single impulse to move anywhere. He knew somehow, deep down inside of him, still with the Great Dragon’s last words circling inside his head, that this would be his life from now on. He was bound to be forever verging in the line between slumber and attention. He had met evil wizards with time who had chased and coveted the idea of eternal life – little did they know, Merlin snickered without feeling like it, that a never ending existence also meant being awake forever.

Now, he knew.

Now, he knew many things.

He knew, for instance, that his life’s work had been for nought. That every time he had saved Arthur’s life, it had been just to move him a small fraction forward to the grave the Fates had installed for him. That every time he had come just in time to stop the worst from happening, all his efforts had been useless. Merlin had devoted his life to his king’s, and now that that was extinguished, he did not have anything else. His mother would chastise him for it if she was still around. At Ealdor, everybody kept a hidden sack with leftover grains just in case the next winter was too harsh, or bandits appeared, or somebody lost someone and they had to help. It was a small sack waiting for a bad, rainy day; a backup mattress in case he stumbled too hard on the ground. Merlin did not have a sack to help him in the darkest scenario. Arthur, in all his glory, with all his faults, at every waking moment had been Merlin’s brightest and darkest scenario all at once. And now, he had lost it.

And now, he had nothing.

Merlin sighed and stretched his toes. That much he could do now. He smelled the sweet humidity of the lake’s waters. The shore was just within reach; if he managed to move an inch closer, his boots could graze the waves still looming from where the boat had departed. He did not feel like touching these waters ever again. He did not feel like doing much else either.

After he had lost track of the hours, of how many times he had seen the sun rising and the moon setting above him, and his eyes still remained wide open and his hands empty, Merlin got to his feet and walked away. He did not leave very far. Just enough to still catch the glimmer of the lake’s surface with every bright morning but not too close to smell the wet grass near the edge. He found a meadow nearby and conjured everything that he might need to survive a long wait –he did not know for how long he would be staying, so he brought almost anything that he could think of. His new cottage had a stove where he never cooked, a chimney that he never lit, a bed he never slept on, a bath he never filled, clothes he never wore, and books he seldom read. He kept the curtains drawn during the day so he could not see the lake from afar, but when night fell he stood by the windows and stared at the dark-blue reflection. He tried to peer farther and farther as his eyes let them, he used his magic to see ahead from the path, and imagined at some point he would find Arthur in the same position trying to meet his eyes, too. It never happened.

Eventually, Merlin took the cottage apart, piece by piece and made it disappear just as it had never existed. He took a bag for appearance’s sake, and walked to the closest town. Living like a small town physician, he helped people as best as he could and witnessed in silence as magic was allowed around the kingdom. The lift of the ban almost meant nothing to him –he felt proud of Gwen’s duty as a fair Queen, but the freeing happiness that the young Merlin had dreamt before was not in him anymore. He did not feel free, only tired and his hands heavy with an invisible pull. With time, he managed to integrate new methods for healing the people in town that worked more with the surge of his veins than the motions of his hands. The young man that had appeared one day and started a small clinic disappeared just like that, and in the next day in the same house, an old warlock took over his duties. Nobody noticed the difference.

After time, when the town had started to vanish as the people seek better opportunities in bigger places, Merlin left as well. He regretted never taking an apprentice as much as he was glad for it; he had ceased seeking conversations with people long time ago. To make small talk with a young eager person ready to learn, and see the lively hope in the eyes of another magical would have been too much.

Merlin left and nobody noticed the moment of his departure either.

He settled in a distant city, the biggest he could find near the lake. Now, the cold icy shores were only two days away from him –although, the idea of making that pilgrimage made his stomach twist with uneasiness he did it anyway. Only he ventured under the close protection of the night sky. Every Friday night, as the world laid asleep, Merlin left his small home and walked without flinching the path in the dark. He knew the shape of the hedges by heart, and could predict every necessary turn with his eyes closed. As the rest slept, Merlin walked to feel himself waking up just a slice from eternal slumber. Whenever he had a visitor at his place, nobody ever questioned why he did not have a bed – he was just a lonely old man who helped from time to time when he was around. He was allowed to have his unexplainable quirks.

Merlin liked this kind of life. It was simple, removed from complications, and easy to carry through. Yet with every step he took, every person he talked to, every scent he smelled, he could not forget it was all borrowed.

It hurt him deep down that this memory could not let him enjoy what little he had –it was not as if he had asked to have this borrowed time of waiting, nobody had asked him if this was the life he wanted. The Fates had entrusted him with an existence nobody else could accept. But Merlin was kind, he was faithful and obnoxiously loyal, so he had accepted knowing nobody was asking him to accept anything. As if a positive reply could grant permission to time to linger over his body and mind, and take residence in his universe for as long as it deemed convenient. Curse Arthur, Merlin would mutter when he would have to tell a young mother her baby would not survive this winter no matter what. Curse Arthur for leaving him with all this life to spare that he could not give away to somebody else who might have all the world to enjoy, too.

Curse Arthur, and all the gods, the Fates and even the Great Dragon. Curse them all.

Merlin grew more and more tired as time passed. He did not count the years anymore; the idea of keeping such a large account made him shudder. He made sure to always apply two mirages in his face every morning before opening his consultation: one to be the old man everybody knew by now, and another to hide away the bags under his eyes. With the years, these two motions became as essential as breathing.

It should not have surprised Merlin that with no sleep, there were no more dreams. The fragmented pictures that he might see like random vignettes from times passed, were nothing but memories that his mind brought up to feel less lonely. With time, his mind became less and less sharp and the accuracy of Gwen’s curls, Gaius’ wrinkles, Gwaine’s eyes’ shades, and even the colour of his mother’s clothes began to fade. He found a spell to lock the images inside his head, like a vault that would keep them safe forever frozen in time. But his mind did not have an everlasting space to haul every single one. Merlin had to make decisions he hoped nobody could account him for if they ever knew: Gwaine’s laughter over Elyan’s jokes, the first time he had seen Gwen over the last time he had seen Lancelot, his mother over Freya, Gaius over his father. It pained him as the pictures that could not stay, started to fade away from his grasp. Even so, when it came to Arthur there was no contest. Anything that he might find in the darken corners of his memory, he kept it. Arthur’s red shirt in their first meeting, the first time Merlin had given him his shield in the right direction, that time he had made Arthur laugh when they were stuck in the woods because of a rough blizzard, the sight of his prince disappearing as he became king. All of them, Merlin coveted them with greed like a dragon craved gold. The thought never failed to make him smile: Arthur was Merlin’s gold, his dearest treasure.

Time had shaped the world in front of Merlin’s eyes and he had witnessed it all from a side. He was a silent spectator of the changing world that could not feel like his own. His world had Arthur in it. That was what he knew best and he did not want to change it. Then, he would correct himself. Merlin’s world did not contain Arthur like a feature of it –Merlin’s world was Arthur. Even after all of this, it still was. The stubborn prat just refused to leave, and kept on dwelling just irate him. What came of a person’s existence when their world collapsed under their arms and they were forever stuck trying to lift their invisible weight? After all this time, Merlin still did not know the answer.

Life kept on happening around him, and he kept doing what he knew best. Magic became a rare trait and cities changed shape like Morgana changed dresses during the day. He had saved her in his vault like he had known her the first time: an immortal image of grace and caring passion. He kept her frozen like that for his own sake.

One night, no different from any other, as Merlin stood by the window gazing in the direction he knew the lake was, he heard a voice.

Or the pretence of a voice, the idea of a voice, how Merlin imagined a voice with authority should sound like. He had not heard such a commanding tone for so long—he shook his head, it could not be.

But then, why not?

There had to be a time for it to occur, why not tonight? What made it so impossible for it to happen with this moon and this time and with this wind flowing?

It could be, right? He thought afraid.

The voice kept on coming, but he could not understand it. Somehow, that did not bother him. It was like having a companionable echo next to his ear, whispering sweet words of encouragement. Nobody had been that for Merlin before, used as he was been the serviceable believer of Arthur when the other’s confidence faltered.

He did not move from the window, afraid of losing track of the flowing voice as if he had stumbled in its path while it travelled through the night air. If it had been an accidental chance for him to hear it, he did not care. What mattered was that it was there, within reach and so many hopeful and bright thoughts came with it, too. Merlin closed his eyes, but the words were still too vague for him to discern their meaning. He just lingered there, waiting for something he could not name.

Then, as if a light bolt had struck him straight to the chest once again, Merlin felt sleepy. He yawned and felt his eyes closing down slowly, like he was once again a small child and his mother was dragging him down to take a nap. He did not want to move away from his post, like the zealous watchman that he felt like, but his head started to drop sideways as time passed. He turned around for a second, and noticed with a careless laughter that he did not own a bed. For how long, all he had known was a sleepless world. The idea of resting in a bed felt foreign and unusual. He laughed again. Still, Merlin felt like he could use a couple of hours of sleep –perhaps, he thought, he could rest his eyes for a moment, just in case and he would be more alert after it. Maybe, it was his magic talking as he conjured a bed next to him, or it was the voice that told him not be an idiot and go to bed, but Merlin conceded nonetheless.

And for the first time in so many years, in an entire lifetime, in a new world he did not recognise, Merlin slept.

_“You have been so faithful so trusting and so true._ _Though there were times you did some things you knew you shouldn’t do. You have been forgiven and now at last you’re free. So won’t you come and take my hand and share my life with me? So when tomorrow starts without me don’t think we’re far apart, for every time you think of me, I’m right here in your heart.”_

Merlin roused from slumber with the first sunrays, the voice’s clear words still fresh inside his head. His hands did not feel tired any more, his shoulders were no longer pulled forward, and his eyes were wide awake. When he looked at his reflection in the window, his face was his usual self and the bags that had taken residence under his eyes were gone. Merlin looked a hundred years younger, and perhaps that was the right calculation. He felt as if he could walk from miles and miles without needing to stop or drink or eat –he felt he could do anything, and perhaps he could but he only felt like doing one thing.

He had to return.

Merlin had to come back from his world of darken silence, just as Arthur was about to. They were two sides of the same coin, after all. It made sense that they would return to this world hand-in-hand, waking up at the same instance.

Arthur had returned to wake him up. Merlin smiled with the thought –it made sense, how many times the prat had complained of him falling asleep in his morning duties? He could hear the other’s voice now, the loud shout eventually the rest of the castle learned to recognise, of his king seeking his servant, his half searching for his other piece. It was only fair that Merlin would be there to see him rousing from sleep like he always did, too.


End file.
